Mass. GOP Senate candidates to talk issues tonight in Easton

All three Republican candidates campaigning for a shot at the U.S. Senate seat vacated by John Kerry will square off in a forum at 7 Tuesday night, March 12, at Stonehill College.

All three Republican candidates campaigning for a shot at the U.S. Senate seat vacated by John Kerry will square off in a forum at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Stonehill College.

The hour-long forum at Pettit Atrium in the Shields Science Center is free and open to the public. It will also stream live at PatriotLedger.com

It marks the first time that Cohasset businessman and former Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez, former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan of Abington, and state Rep. Daniel Winslow of Norfolk will meet in a debate-style format since making the cut for the primary.

All three are vying for the GOP nomination in the April 30 primary.

The forum is being hosted by the Martin Institute at Stonehill College in Easton. It is co-sponsored by WickedLocal/GateHouse Media, WCVB-TV Channel 5 and WGBH.

Panelists will include WCVB Channel 5 senior political reporter Janet Wu, Adam Reilly from WGBH and Chris Burrell from The Patriot Ledger.

Massachusetts Republicans are hoping to recapture one of the state’s two U.S. Senate seats after Scott Brown lost his re-election bid last year to Democrat Elizabeth Warren.

The winner of the June 25 special election will fill the Senate seat left vacant when Kerry resigned to become U.S. secretary of state.

Other debates are still being organized. Winslow has pushed for one debate in each of the state’s nine congressional districts, but the Sullivan campaign has said that four debates are sufficient for the primary race.

In a poll last week conducted by UMass-Lowell and the Boston Herald, the three Republicans all trailed by more than ten percentage points in potential match-ups against each of the two Democratic candidates, U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch and U.S. Rep. Edward Markey.